


Ledgerdemain

by PurpleMoon3



Series: Not Dead Yet [2]
Category: Highlander: The Series, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Clan Denial, F/M, Feelings, M/M, Porn, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-07-22 23:15:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20000092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleMoon3/pseuds/PurpleMoon3
Summary: A Very Belated Sequel to Hitchhiking.  Richie and Loki stop for the night at a motel and Loki decides to worm his way into Richie's pants.  CONFIDENCE.  I totally mean confidence.





	1. Chapter 1

Sol was just beginning to peak over the horizon when Loki stepped out of the cramped bathing chamber feeling better than he had in decades. Magic tended to do that. The chemical scent of midgardian soap clung to his hair, for he'd had to do something to get the light-years worth of dirt and debris out of it, but nothing required he use the towels that appeared as gray and scratchy as an old, ill tempered cat. Carelessly dripping, Loki leaned his shoulder into the doorway separating the bathroom from sleeping quarters and took a moment to observe the young _hver_.

The blond himself slept still, bare but for a bit of blanket preserving his modesty, and Loki shuttered his eyes as a smile stole onto his face.

Here was Loki, false Prince and unwanted King, lacking of title or claim. No einherjar to guard him. No shieldmates to fight with him. Not even a dagger to his name, but he was too weak and cowardly to destroy the last of the monsters properly, and so he still had himself. The smile soured into a smirk. Himself was all he'd ever had, truly, and all he'd needed.

Loki stepped lightly across the room, avoiding travel stained clothing and battered leather, wading deeper into the intangible fog of magic that rose from his companion like steam from a spring. Thor likely thought him dead, Odin would kill him if he knew otherwise -politics would _demand_ it- and Loki had no reason to disabuse them of the notion. He hovered over the sleeping boy and whispered in his ear, “Richie. Time to get up. You wanted to be up with the sun, did you not?”

The boy grumbled, eyes firmly shut, and buried his face in his pillow.

Loki's lips parted with amusement. A dead man had no commitments, no duty, and no place to be – granted, that last because he had no place. The trickster's own magic was still low, only just now refilling as it no longer needed to immediately shunt energy into healing, and every cell in his body sang with the desire to cuddle up with his _hver_ like a beast beside a fire and _soak_.

Loki traced the curve of Richie's ear with his nose, dodged around the hand that bat ineffectively at the air, and placed a soft kiss on his host's pulse. It was warm and welcoming, power rushing even in repose, and the godling knew it would be the work of an eye blink to bite down and let the magic free. To lap at blood and power like a kitten did milk. Loki licked a hot stripe up Richie's neck and suckled at the boys jaw -the mumbles were more coherent now, with a clear whisper of _Maria_ \- while circling a nipple with his finger. Man. Woman. The nerve endings were all the same.

Richie rolled over beneath him, and Loki grinned as a sword of another sort was revealed. It never failed to amuse him that no matter how long or hard a warrior trained their body, taking pride in hands that crushed skulls and legs conditioned to run for hours, this one simple muscle refused to be mastered. A point of pride, or a point of embarrassment, Loki had entertained them all.

Wriggling backward on the bed, Loki settled himself between Richie's legs and took the morning's wood into his mouth. The trickster twirled his tongue around the tip, comparing the memory of uncut aesir to the trimmed form of the now rapidly waking blond. Loki swallowed Richie's length to the hilt, pushing himself onto his elbow to do so, and giggled around the cock in his mouth as soft golden down tickled his nose. Bleary blue eyes blinked down at him.

“Uh, um, is this normally how space aliens greet each other where you're from? Not that I'm objecting, per-say, but here on earth it is usually polite to get consent from your pa-a-a-” The _hver_ trailed off, mouth falling opening deliciously as Loki hallowed his cheeks and sucked. Green eyes sparkled as they watched calloused hands fist into the rumpled bed sheets. He stroked the underside of his captive with his tongue, slowly moving off and releasing the erection with a wet pop. The trickster propped his chin against his the heel of his palm and stared at the wide eyed boy with lowered lashes.

Something dark shifted in the blue eyes -disgust maybe, or fear- and the ever present cloud of magic pulled away, retreating back into young warrior before him. Had he misjudged so drastically? Again?

Would he be tossed away with a _No, Loki._

“You are not a lover of men.” Loki stated more than asked, instead reaching with mental fingers to twist his paltry store of magic it into a weave as natural to him as breathing. As a prodigy in the illusory arts -though now the pride he once took in his shapeshifting was bitter- the spell to lay down a false image and then force that notion into being was simple yet effective. All it took was an eye for detail and a fantastic helping of imagination.

Of course, if the form one wore was simply another illusion _of course_ it would be an exercise in simplicity to swap one fantasy for another. The God of Lies, lying to himself.

Pink lips plumped, hard angles smoothed, and an toned ass that could have bounced a penny gained a nice cushion of fat. Eyebrows rose at the change, climbing up into a cage of sweat stained yellow curls, and Loki sat back on her haunches. The fact that such a move pushed newly shaped breasts to the fore was an afterthought. Loki tilted her head cutely even as a dash of spite flew from her mouth. “Would a woman soothe your delicate sensibilities?”

Richie's expression smoothed into a small frown as he sat up, pillows scattering as he caught Loki's questing hands with his own. “You _do_ bring a whole new meaning to the phrase LGBTQ, and boy am I questioning a lot right now, but you don't – you don't owe me _anything_ Loki. I'm not going to go spilling UFO sightings on the eleven o'clock news, even if Randi would jump on it like bacon grease from a frying pan. Ah, Bacon, I could go for some -do aliens have food allergies? Sleaze motels like this are cheap but they don't exactly offer a smorgasbord for breakfast.”

“Richie-” Loki started, then stopped. The boy could babble as well as Bragi.

“What I'm trying to say,” Richie sighed with a small, sly smile that curled Loki's toes. “Is guy or gal, you do you.”

“I'd rather do you.” Something inside Loki fluttered, and she surged forward pinning the other between herself and the headboard. She pressed her lips to Richie's, opening her mouth once she felt him begin to reciprocate, and slipped her tongue inside to share the blond's own taste with him. His arms were not as thickly muscled as some -Richie's preferred weapon was a thin blade meant for a thrust and parry over the cleaving strokes of the bastard swords Thor once preferred- but they were practiced.

Loki purred as Richie pulled her close -the boy's magic a soundless crackle against her skin- and luxuriated in the attention as fingers as clever as her own crept up her spine and massaged the back of her neck. She ran a hand down his chest in appreciation of well defined abs, and giggled into their kiss as she was reminded of an advertisement from the night previous – ribbed for her pleasure. Richie broke away first, cheeks flushed adorably, gasping.

“Oh, wow. That was, wow.” He swallowed thickly -Loki wanted to latch onto that bobbing larynx and suckle- before continuing. Loki's hand finished trailing down Richie's torso and wrapped proprietorially around his cock. She tugged, lightly, and Richie groaned. “I gotta know. Is this a fling-thing, or a thing-thing, because I can do either but there is a whole world out there and if you want to stay with me I won't say _no_.”

The goddess bit her lip, hands winding down the hard shaft to cup and weigh his neglected testicles. “I don't have anywhere else to go, _hver._ ”

“Who-where? Whatever. And you do, plenty, with a few fake ID's the world is a goddamn oyster. You shouldn't run off with the first earthling you see – even when he's as gorgeous as me. That's a condition, I think, something to do with veterinarians.”

Loki rolled her eyes, put her hands on the boy's broad shoulders, and then raised her hips to scoot forward. She carefully angled her body, coy green reflected in earnest blue, and then came down firmly on Richie's penis. He easily slid inside, and she rocked gently in place as his hot girth filled her. “This is – a thing.” Loki didn't quite understand the phrase, unless a council of two was some sort of midgardian slang for sexual congress. “Our thing?”

“Gah- Yes. Yes. Our thing. Keep doing that, _fuck_.”

“That is the idea.” Loki smiled in triumph, breasts bouncing.

Odin was a legendary lover. The tales weren't bandied about as much now -not within Frigga's hearing, at least- but the _Bolverk_ 's youth was a collection of sordid affairs in the relentless pursuit of knowledge. Loki had idolized the Allfather. Using seduction as much as guile to ferret out enemy weakness and pounce on opportunity: the slaughter of Ymir, the seduction and subsequent abandonment of Gunnlod.

Loki grinned, all teeth, and tensed her inner walls. Her _hver_ heaved and forcefully switched their positions, pushing the breath from Loki's lungs even as he drove himself deeper into the fallen prince. He offered his fingers for her to suck, and the dark magician lavished attention on the calloused digits as though they were another cock. Loki was not -would not- be Odin. And perhaps that was a good thing. It was no eye, but her sense of self had been too great a price for the knowledge gained from it.

“I'm alive.” Loki gasped, delirious with the thought as her lover continued his steady fucking of her. “I'm alive. I have _you_ , and I am alive.”

Richie laughed a trio of short, sharp barks. His movement wasn't the quick, rushed coupling of youth and as he dug his right hand beneath her bottom to play with her ass Loki knew the experience for what it was. She closed her legs around his torso and lifted herself, just enough to make his access to her other hole easier. “How old are you?”

The man tickled her skin with his words, “Thirty-seven. I'm thirty-seven, I'm not old, and no I am not quoting Monty Python. My name is not Dennis. Do _not_ call me Dennis.”

“Of course not, Richie.” Loki shuddered at the burn as a spit-slick finger worked its way inside her. In and out, thrust and parry, Loki imagined Richie fucked like he fought. Quick movements that danced around for precision strikes that would end the fight before it rightly began. Not unlike Loki's own methods. “ _Richie_.”

Loki bucked, meeting the next thrust with her hips while causing the man above her to unbalance and tumble. Richie fell onto his side, arms clutching his woman instinctively, but they were both caught by the bed with its poor quality sheets – barely. Richie's head and shoulders hung off the edge. He grinned ruefully as Loki laughed and extracted herself from the tangle of limbs and linen. She reached for her own sex, spreading her legs wide while doing so. The trickster pinched her clitoris between mid and forefinger and sighed as her insides twitched at the new stimulation.

Richie crawled close in a reversal of their previous positioning and rested his cheek on a creamy thigh, catching his breath while watching the show. Loki dipped into her dripping passage and smeared nature's lubricant over her mound, lathering it on her sensitive nub before rubbing in tight circles. She whimpered his name until he ran his knuckles along the soft inner part of her leg with a laugh of unneeded permission.

Loki's insides clenched as she came, a small measure of liquid squirting from her vagina. Dark hair contrasted against pale sheets as Loki collapsed, chest moving with every satisfied pant, emotions a cloud of too brief contentment. Green eyes narrowed at the smirking blond and his still stiff penis. It was a lovely pink, engorged, yet somehow mocking.

Loki pouted, her body blurred with a snap of magic until the second son's base state resumed. “You didn't come.”

“Orgasm isn't everything.” Richie grinned with his entire body, idly petting Loki's thigh with one hand and gesturing vaguely with the other. “Sometimes it's just about making the other person feel good. Uh, we are the other's other person, right?”

“Thirty-seven, you say?” Loki doubted it. He reached for his own rising dick, stroking it and thinking. “You seem older.”

Blue eyes darkened like a sky before a lightning storm, and there was that strange laugh again. “I've... acquired some extensive experience.”

“Well.” The trickster snapped, shaking the recumbent blond off his leg. “I am not in the habit of leaving my partners unsatisfied.”

“I'm not _unsatisfied_ , the face you make when you're close is-” Loki kissed his opponent into silence, pursed lips pressed into a growing grin. He reached down and reclaimed Richie's softening cock in cum covered hands, and pumped. Twisted. Felt his own twitch in interest as Richie groaned at the renewed attention and dug his ankle into the mattress. Pale lashes fluttered.

“Checkout isn't until ten,” though Loki knew Richie had wanted to leave before then. He slid his hand up the erection, down, then back up while squeezing just a moment at the top. The godling relaxed, cheek brushing against cheek, and murmured into the midgardian's shoulder. “Sometimes, it takes another man to know just how to make a cock _weep_.”

“Is that a challenge?” Richie's voice was heavy, but his expression was light. Loki watched his face while taking himself in hand, working the both of them in tandem. The younger man's lower lip was wet, his cheeks carried a healthy flush, all with a light sheen of sweat that glowed god like in the yellow bulbs of the inn. Loki, weak and wreaked, was but a shadow in comparison yet Richie's regard was as wanting as it was open. Foolish, in a way.

In answer to the jibe, Loki went on the attack. This time when he pressed his kiss he didn't stop, capturing the _hver_ 's mouth and tripping him backwards with a soft thump. He abandoned the pursuit of his own pleasure to dig his fingers into harvest ready locks and press skin to skin. Oil wasn't in ready supply, and there was only so much he could do with the fluids generated from his female form. The bathing chamber? Too cramped. Too much risk of a fall. And he didn't trust any artificial lubricants midgardians might use, anyway.

The brief trembling of teeth against his tongue were his first warning. The second an aborted jerk, and a pulse of brilliant energy that forced Loki to shut down his esoteric senses simply for self preservation as he felt Richie thrust rapidly into the circle of his fingers. Loki blinked the stars from his eyes, looking down to see globs of white dripping down the side of his chest. He dabbed at it and rubbed the suspension between his fingers contemplatively.

“Do you-” Loki pouted and tried to swallow Richie's words -he was not Odin, he would not be Odin- but the boy just reared his head back, retreating like a child between kisses. “-want me- to stroke-”

“ _Mine.”_ The godling denied while batting away the questioning hand reaching for his own needy penis. He considered transforming a few stray articles of clothing into binding, to keep his prize ready and wanton, but that would be a game for another time. This was... a tasting, and a promise. 

Loki was taller than the blond, but as he flopped down on his left side next to the younger man it wasn't wholly obvious. Richie's arm came up to wrap around his shoulders, and Loki's head rested on a pillow of pectoral muscle. His ear listened to the rapid beat of Richie's heart as he played with the other's balls, idly rolling them as he waited for the other man to recover. The trickster hooked his right leg around the boy's, gently keeping him open, and gradually his hand drifted from balls to perineum to anus. Loki's hard shaft pressed against Richie's hip.

The blond sighed, finally giving up on his incessant interruptions of the moment, and stroked Loki's arm with his thumb. It was a slow petting synchronized to the rub of Loki's fingers on the young warrior's hole. His semen was a serviceable lubricant, if limited in quantity. Loki hummed happily. He could fix that.

With a flick of his wrist he slipped a single finger inside, his  _hver_ 's breath hitching sweetly as he did so. Only, the boy was tight and his body too tense so soon after spending. Richie had certainly known what he was doing when he'd played with Loki's ass -but that had been the hole of a woman with cushion and curves, soft and vulnerable- was Richie one of  _those?_ Did he think it didn't count so long as  _he_ was the one doing the penetrating?

Loki probed perhaps a bit harsher than necessary. His eyes were hooded as he hissed a soft, “Relax.”

The sphincter around his finger did so, but with an agonizing slowness. Loki matched the pace of the younger soul's acceptance as he worked the digit back and forth against the muscle. As it loosened the dark godling made to slip a second finger inside, but reconsidered. He was already working a passage dryer than he liked – and his Richie was  _new_ . With a bit of work, and a few questing probes, the magician's fingertip found the bundle of nerves that had made hardened warriors the world over fall begging to their knees.

Richie's cock, half mast simply from the gentle stimulation of before, returned to full readiness as the trickster nudged at the prostate within.

“ _Christ_.” The blond exhaled and Loki found himself hugged tight to a sweaty chest. His own penis bobbed a dripping line of precum along a tanned thigh and he didn't feel any guilt as he kept up the pressure, poking and prodding and licking at the nipple that was teasingly close to his mouth. The body beside him squirmed with increasingly confused movements, until another jet of cum spattered onto belly and bed sheets and a rush of excited energy poured into Loki's eagerly waiting reserves. “ _Dio_.”

Triumphant, Loki slid from Richie's hold. Once again, he stared down at the impossible creature beneath him. The trickster took his own cock in hand, the thing stiff and flushed an angry red from the neglect. With his left hand Loki worked himself, he was so  _close_ , and with his own lean body straddling the blond's legs Richie couldn't flee when Loki took that which had been inside him and reached down to massage the outside. Down covered balls balanced easily in Loki's palm while hands used to precise, clever motions of spell work multi-tasked to press at the space just beyond them. 

The little sounds Richie was making were adorable. The thousand and one expressions that flickered across his face -had he seen rage in there, for a moment?- gratifying. He'd had to restrain himself, his fingers an unforgiving ring until the wave of satisfaction stalled in frustration and ebbed back. The  _hver_ whimpered -followed by a breathless whisper of don't stop when Loki hesitated- throwing his arms over his face. Pity. 

It took longer than before, but that was understandable. There was a degree of separation between Loki and Richie's prostate now, and the poor dear had already come twice under Loki's ministrations. Eventually though, he fell, and with a strangled scream in the back of his throat the younger man peaked in a dribble of seminal fluid.

A twist and tug, and Loki finally allowed himself to orgasm. Richie didn't flinch as the other man's cum spattered on his stomach, mingling with the remains of his own. Indeed, the young warrior was taking shallow, steady breaths as he gazed between the shelter of his arms at nothing at all.

“Richie?” Loki asked, his sense of smug pride crashing into a sea of worry. “ _Hver?_ ” 

Loki took hold of Richie's arms and pried them apart, though there wasn't much strength left in them. The boy was like a jointed doll, easy to manipulate, and no fun at all. Loki's lips pressed into a thin line. He hovered before glassy blue eyes, watching every slow blink, and peppered kisses along the lifeline of Richie's neck. “Time to wake up.”

Between one moment and the next Richie gasped, his whole body tensing with the action, and with shaking hands he gripped Loki's hovering face with a smile. “That was – Amazing. I feel like I died, but in a  _good_ way.”

Loki rolled his eyes and dropped to the side, kicking Richie in the shin childishly as he did so. “I thought I had broken you.”

“Nah. Takes more than epic sex to do that.” The blond rolled his neck, bones popping like clashing marbles, and glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Richie scrambled, limbs flailing as he leapt up and began kicking discarded clothing around in a frantic search. “Oh- oh shit!”

“We have time.” Loki frowned at the blinking numbers as if they had insulted him, but he refused to rise from the bed. While the sheets may have been poor quality they were warm, and smelled like the sparking energy of the young man trying desperately to sort out the mess they'd made the night before.

“To check out, yeah, but I've still got over four hundred miles to cover before they find the body...”

Loki hid his smile behind wadded up bedding.

“...and I did not just say that. Please, please don't... you are laughing. Why are you laughing?”

Loki rolled onto his stomach and swung his legs back and forth in the air, teeth bared. He licked the bitter flavor of spent semen from his hand before raising a single digit as if testing the wind. “Instead of reporting my arrival to the local authorities, you steal me away riding long into the dead of night before signing for this room under the name of _William Redstone_.”

A second deceptively delicate finger joined the first as a dark eyebrow rose. “You've offered to provide me identification documents, and while I do not pretend to be fully aware of midgardian customs procedure I am certain doing so would require a certain... less than legality.

“Now, by your own slip of tongue a corpse is in play – one you don't want discovered. You are either the murder, or an accessory, but fugitive either way.” Loki fanned three fingers in the stale air like a street magician with playing cards. He scattered the cards and looked away, green eyes darkening with the thoughts that spoke in voices not his own. “We are none of us truly clean. And there is honor among thieves... or at least a professional courtesy, is there not?”

Apprehension leaked from his  _hver_ 's shoulders, and a shirt he had been trying and failing to stuff into a canvas bag returned to the floor. With the shadows from the shuttered window playing across Richie's face, the young man looked older.  _Old._ Thirty-seven, he said. When Loki was a child, a mortal of that many years would have a child of his own and a homestead. Or a place at his lord's table with his sword serving beside fellow warriors. 

But Richie was alone.

“Yeah.” Richie whispered, running a hand through yellow curls. “Jesus, Amanda would _love_ you. Listen, I'm going to take a quick shower. Do... whatever you want. I gotta hit the road ASAP – there's a window of opportunity for me that closes the second Clark's absence gets reported.”

Loki watched Richie walk away, or more accurately watched Richie's ass as it retreated to the bathing chamber. The door shut, and the sound of water running overwhelmed everything else. It was an out, but one Loki did not intend to take. Heimdall couldn't see him, couldn't tell Odin where to find him and send Thor to drag him back... 

Loki hummed happily and put his feet on the floor. He stood up, spine cracking deliciously, and began retrieving scattered clothing, folding and packing it neatly away.

* * *

After turning the spigot on the water Richie put the lid down on the toilet and sat. The motel was cheap, as his usual, but the water pressure was excellent. He scrubbed at his scalp and let the thunder of hot water on porcelain drown out everything but his own thoughts. The pounding of water was relaxing - not unlike those kung-fu movies where the fighter guy sits under a waterfall.

He had a lot to think about. Though, from the slight burn at his asshole his sexuality was his foremost concern. Ever since his first crush in elementary school he'd enjoyed the female form. Angie's pigtails had been adorably tuggable, and the way her nose scrunched up when mad made him laugh until the punch she'd delivered to his stomach caused him to puke up any misplaced affection. Sweet childhood memories.

“It's not like I have anything against it,” Richie muttered to himself, confident Loki could hear him just about as well as he could hear Loki. He turned the idea around in his head, but now that he was out of the moment and his hormones weren't driving stick reasoning things out was a bit easier. Sometimes, he hated being an Immortal. Being nineteen forever was better than being nine, he supposed, but it came with it's own unique problems.

Headhunters saw a kid and thought he'd be an easy quickening. Employers saw a brat with no experience that should be in college. And himself? He was nearly forty, but the only women who were interested in him were young enough he could rarely connect or of an age and temperament more suited to make him a plaything than an equal. The sex could be amazing -Richie kicked his head back as his mind flashed to Cynthia and tattoos that bounced as she did- but maybe he'd spent too much time with Connor. When it came to Immortality the man was a better teacher than Duncan -he tended to answer plainly and literally beat lessons into you- but the man had way, way more hangups. Especially when it came to sex and women.

Was it a hopeless wish to want someone to stay with him, rather than shoe him out the door like a dismissed booty-call? Robert and Gina had that. Mac and Tess would have been together for decades if the mugger hadn't shot her, he was sure.

Was he so desperate he'd pick up a guy who fell out of the fucking sky for a good screw?

“No,” Richie sighed. “Carlos had offered...”

The immortal's stomach turned at the memory of dead eyes and a cigarette dangling from cold lips. It was enough to turn him off the idea for years. The first time Mac had kicked him out had been, arguably, the hardest. Mako's quickening had been an eye opener and not something any of the others had ever told him about. Memories spilling into his own. Habits centuries in the making cropping up in his own life. Nineteen versus seven-hundred. Dark. Light. Usually a gray in-between. Like Connor had said: it was one of those things no one mentions because everyone knows.

But Richie hadn't known, and Mako had preferred men. It was a source of subtle self-loathing when the legality of sodomy couldn't be counted on.

Did Richie like guys? Did Loki count as a guy if he was an alien? Humans did not normally survive re-entry, or immortals for that matter. And Loki had a point. Should he be concerned about an imminent invasion?

“Nah, if aliens wanted to take over earth they wouldn't drop off their agents half dead.” Richie's mind flashed to another memory -his own- seen through a camera lens as two friends intentionally allowed themselves to be shot before falling to their 'deaths'. Richie ground the heels of his palms into his eyes and blew a raspberry. Steam was quickly filling the room and he _did_ need to get a move on. Stopping for his latest -he hesitated to call Loki a damsel- had put him back several hours and he didn't know how long until someone found where he'd stashed Clark Kelly's headless corpse.

Once that happened, it would be a lot harder to move the money even with all the guy's account logins and passwords.

Richie stepped into the shower, pulled the plastic curtain shut behind him, and began to scrub down with a soapy washcloth. There was no point in stressing when he didn't even know if Loki would still be there when he finished. A single thread of wry humor burst into the young immortal's mind: An alien anally probed me. I am never going to be able to watch the History Channel the same way again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you know? Posting actually kicked my muse in gear and got this out. Richie POV gets a little angsty, and Loki is horny. All he wants in life is a small group of immortals he can use as a buffer against the House of Odin that he can pay with sexual favors.
> 
> Also, Loki has *feelings* about poor father figures. Very angry feelings.

Richie absently eased off the gas as they approached their exit. After near ten years of continuous travel the action was automatic, his eyes matching the mile marker on the side of the road to memory scoured into his brain by Clark Kelly's quickening, and following through as appropriate. His passenger's fingers, long and nimble and terribly distracting, rubbed absently against his stomach. Flying along at ninety mph the rush of wind and the roar of the engine made talk impossible. It left more time to think, which was usually what Richie did on the long rides alone.

He did a lot of things alone. It was one of the many problems that came with eternal youth, he supposed. Even if times had changed and people didn't pay as much attention to their neighbors as they once did, a young man living alone was something to be talked about. Not as much as if Richie had been a girl, but still. A few years of neighborly greetings and it just got awkward. So he left.

When the awkwardness included a headless corpse he didn't even bother packing. And it wasn't like he had much to pack, anyway. Thirty seven and he still hadn't managed to shake foster-system instilled habits.

Though, come to think of it, that might have also been a source for awkwardness. Most immortals tended to hoard; the MacLeod's and their antique business', Amanda and her everything, Methos and his books. Hell, even Fitzcairn had collected pipes like old coins. Richie really was the outlier, unless his collection was poorly thought out relationships.

Luckily, Loki didn't seem to mind the fact that Richie was a raging hot mess of an immortal. Just snuggled pleasantly closer, occasionally shifting his weight, occasionally letting those absolutely delightful hands drift downwards to creep under Richie's riding jacket and trace designs on the sensitive skin just below his belly-button. The alien didn't even seem to be bothered that he was a confessed murderer, which, hello hindsight, was probably a red flag that between the time crunch and his dick Richie had been all to happy to ignore.

But there wasn't much else to do during the drive to Clark's but think. There was a sort of meditation in the journey, in the constant rumble of the highway beneath and the passing smear of roadside grass and shrubbery, and it was one he could easily fall into as he sorted through memories older than himself. Richie had given plenty of people rides in the past, but there was something about Loki being pressed up against his back that was less stifling and more soothing. Like an itch after finally getting to scratch, or a post work-out high. Loki didn't _buzz_ , he didn't enter into Richie's awareness with a discordant note that scraped against his skull, but unlike mortals he was definitely there – and getting more solidly present every hour _._

Maybe it was an alien thing. Maybe there had been an immortal who met a sex swapping alien in the past, and that was what was twigging his hind brain. Not anyone Richie had faced, this seemed like a memory that would be bright and blaring after the quickening, but maybe someone they had killed? Or someone even further back in the chain of murder all immortals were bound in. If aliens could look like people, like immortals looked like people, there probably wasn't a way to tell the difference if you weren't an alien yourself.

But that line of thought didn't seem quite right either. The _buzz_ didn't get stronger with exposure. It varied, according to the age and strength of the individual immortal, but it hadn't gotten stronger when he'd been living with Mac, or even throughout the decade he'd spent with Connor. The opposite, actually _._ Like a pair of tuning forks, with exposure one awareness learned and matched the other, at least until they got enough distance to differentiate again.

Loki felt, just a little, like that. Like, Richie realized with a bit of bile flavoring the memory that wasn't his, a pre-immortal. But from his own experience Richie knew it was impossible for someone with the potential to become immortal to know it; not unless someone else came and blabbed the secret beforehand. And if hitting the ground so hard he left a twelve foot wide impact crater didn't pancake the guy... Loki was just... he was letting Richie's quickening wash over him, in him, absorbing it and throwing something that wasn't the harsh jarring of an enemy back at him. A _hum_ , he supposed. Fucking _weird_ , and yet-

“'s nice.” Richie murmured, voice muffled by his helmet as soft fingers continued to draw childish shapes on his skin. It was a nice distraction from Clark Kelly's memories, and helped keep him from falling into a pit of alternating self-loathing and self-righteousness. Richie acknowledged the posted speed limit as they approached civilization and began to decrease speed even further. They would need to check in a motel, first, maybe hit up a tourist trap or two while waiting for dusk. A diner, at least. Plausible deniability, just in case. “Maybe we'll head back south after this. Might be nice.”

“Did you say something, _hver?_ ” Loki asked sleepily as he shifted on his perch, rocking forward slightly before settling back down. Then they passed a billboard announcing gas at the next exit and he _shifted,_ and Richie felt the small hairs on the back of his neck and all down his arms stand at attention. Perfectly matched, soft breasts pressed into Richie's back, bound within a leather top that had not been designed for such ample features. Despite the helmet Richie was wearing he could swear he felt Loki's breath brush against his ear and send tingles down his spine. 

It was exciting.

“Could you not do that, please?”

It was also pants shittingly terrifying.

Richie could practically feel the frown twisting plump, pink lips as the formerly relaxed body behind him tensed. The playful fingers stopped moving, making the immortal imminently aware of the black painted nails attached to them. They came to a red light, and Richie slowed to a stop, swallowing as he considered which way to go.

His passenger hissed through her teeth. Taking advantage of the lull in sound, Loki's next words were demanding and very much accusatory. “You did not mind this morning. I dare say you _liked_ it. Liked me.”

“Not that,” Richie groaned, as soft clever fingers wandered very much below the belt. It made for an uncomfortable stew in his stomach where Loki's touch and second hand memories mingled. Luckily, he'd never met her himself but he'd heard _stories_. Long, dark hair and wide knowing eyes. Powerful. Old. Angry. Bitter. Loki's eyes could be bitter. He'd seen that this morning when he thought Richie was rejecting him. “I don't care what you look like. That sounded bad. I do care. I care a lot, that you are comfortable in whatever skin you're wearing. And you feel -look- good! Either way. It's just-”

“Yes...?” Loki's hands paused, thank god, as the light turned green and Richie revved the engine to take a left. Crashing was never fun, and he'd had enough accidents to be an authority on such things.

“The Voice thing is creepy. There's a woman who can do something similar and, I uh, just... I don't like the thought of that kind of manipulation. Of, hmm, losing control. I've seen that happen to good people, not with _her_ exactly, not personally, but, uh... yeah.”

Fucking demons. Fucking dark quickening. Fucking _Mac_.

“I wouldn't do that to you, Richie.” The words might have been meant to be reassuring, but they didn't sound very genuine as the warm line of Loki's body lifted away. Richie's bike wasn't designed for two people; she couldn't possibly be comfortable. Goddamn. It sounded like he was bringing up and comparing an old girlfriend to the new one, didn't it? “What was this woman's name, if I may ask? Amora? Lorelei, perhaps?”

“Cassandra, actually.” The Witch of Donan Wood. Connor didn't want to touch her even with a ten foot halberd.

Loki hummed, and the _hum_ , never far from Richie's awareness, settled in the immortal's chest like a purring cat. “Interesting. Well. If it bothers you so I can think of other efforts to put my tongue toward...”

And wasn't _that_ a pretty picture. He knew exactly what Loki liked to do with his, her tongue. Not that he himself had any objections to those things. Richie coughed, “We should probably stop for a bite, anyway, and find someplace to check in for the night.”

Like an olive branch being tentatively offered, Richie sensed Loki scooting forward again. One manicured hand settled on his shoulder, stabilizing the alien. “I could... _eat_.”

Right then.

“ _Okay_.”

Business, then pleasure.

* * *

The cabin was situated about a half hour, as the Richie drives, outside of Aspen nestled on one of Colorado's many mountainsides. It wasn't the sort of thing he normally thought of as a cabin, what with its two floors, five bedrooms, absolutely massive kitchen and separate three car garage. Really, the only thing cabin like about it was the roughly-hew, stacked logs that had been integrated with the outer walls. But Clark Kelly had always thought of it as his summer cabin, and so as his memories and fondness for it filtered into Richie the younger immortal did too.

It was easier to compromise on the little things, than risk getting swept aside wholesale.

Richie looked over his shoulder to check on Loki who was once again male if now wearing clothing more suited to earth standard. He'd spent most of their late lunch watching other people, other families, then walked into the bathroom and come out dressed in black jeans and a dark green turtleneck that was so ridiculously plush and soft it shouldn't have worked with rest of the outfit. For a guy who had to have what a waffle was explained to him, he understood fashion just fine. Richie had planned to leave him at a hotel while he went to work, but after finding that pretty much nowhere had a room for less than a hundred his wallet balked and his morals threw a going away party.

The sweet sounds of childhood played through his head. “ _...I've got the brains, you've got the looks, lets make lots of ~money._ ”

“Yes?” Loki answered absently, looking up at the cabin with a bored air. The angle really made his cheekbones stand out. “There doesn't seem to be any guards.”

Richie huffed and stepped out from the shadows of trees that lined the driveway. Gravel shifted underfoot audibly crunching as he jogged over to the back door. He'd left his bike stashed behind some bushes down the road, and Loki had done _something_ that made Richie's eyes water when he'd looked back at it, so that was good. Just two tourists out hiking -must have wandered off the trail, like lovelorn idiots- if anyone asked. Not that he expected anyone to ask. The cabin was on private property, on a private road, after all.

Still, stranger things had happened.

Case in point: “Not that I'm questioning what you're doing,” Loki said as he leaned against one of the second floor's patio support pillars, keeping watch on the drive and tree line. “But I'm curious as to your reasoning. This place seems rather remote. Would not your victim's estate be the first place the law keepers would search?”

“Well, you're not wrong.” Richie answered as he mentally debated going in through the window or picking the lock. Considering the motion sensors he vaguely recalled... He reached into the inner pocket on his riding jacket and removed a folded bit of leather. Once, the old mechanics set had held wrenches and screwdrivers and all the bits that could fit in a socket. Now, it held a very different set of tools, some of which wouldn't have looked out of place in a dental clinic. Richie got to work on the lock. “Which is why I'm in kind of a rush. That, and the guy was paranoid as fuck, which he had reason to be, I guess. A little over twenty years ago now there were a lot of murders. More than usual. Tricked some people into thinking it was the start of the _gathering_ but it was really just a bunch of assholes deciding to show off their assholishness all at once. Ha. Got it.”

The door swung open, and Richie rushed over to the wall mount, quickly punching in the code to disarm the system. He gave his look out a quick thumbs up before taking in the curiously raised, elegant eyebrow and awkwardly continuing the motion upward to scratch at the back of his head. Smooth. “We're good.”

The thief was struck by a feeling not unlike deja-vu as he walked past dishes that had been stacked and left to dry. His accomplice closed the door behind them, and Richie's world tilted on its axis. His skin felt too small for his body. His mind warred with itself, the quickening too recent and memories too close to the surface. Each step brought more up. Here, next to a couch was a boy reading a kids magazine and _feet off the table, Alex._ There, a man grown, expression empty standing in the doorway and _it wasn't your fault, dad, it was an accident._

But it was. It really was. The sheer _surprise_ in the bastard's face when he'd realized he hadn't just challenged a wet-behind the ears brat fresh off their first death but someone with real combat experience... Clark Kelly wasn't dad of the year. He wasn't a philanthropist. He was a Grade-A dick and he was in Richie's head.

“ _Hver?_ Who is in your head?” Loki's voice -there was something dangerous in the lilt of it- brought Richie back to the present, and he realized he'd been staring at a display case full of mementos. An old baseball glove and ball. Ballet shoes. There was even a deck of colorful cards someone had thoughtfully put into those little plastic protection slips. Pokémon? He wouldn't know; he'd been slightly too old to get sucked into that craze.

“Uh, I said that out loud?” Richie asked, wincing.

“Yes.” Loki was leaning against a wall and picking at his palm as he drew out the syllable. It was kinda adorable. “Are you alright?”

Richie ran a hand through his hair, scratching where salty sweat had caused his scalp to itch. Or maybe that was guilt. Except he didn't really have anything to be guilty for, not even the crime he was currently committing, because fuck Clark Kelly and fuck his last will and testament. All his monies was belong to Richie. Or soon would. He just had to get to the office computer and find the damn security fob things.

“I'm fine. Um, have you ever been to earth before?”

“Yes.” Loki replied a little too quickly, gaze drifting around the expansive living room and all the little kick-knacks therein. Several swords had been mounted on a wall like the display pieces they weren't. “Though, admittedly, never this continent and it has been... a while.”

Richie snorted. “Figures, what with you sounding like something outta a period drama, but the brits did have their whole empire thing going so... ah. I guess I should, if we're going to stay together you'd need to know, wouldn't be fair otherwise...”

“Richie.” Loki stepped into his space, and fuck, the height difference wasn't more obvious than right at that moment. The immortal felt the heat of the other man's palm as he cupped the side of Richie's face, long fingers moving teasing over the shell of his ear before trailing down to trace the line of his jaw. Loki's _hum_ was deeper, a siren call, drawing out the tension discomfort and somehow devouring it.

“ _Hver._ Have I done anything to suggest I wish to be parted from you? That I have implied you to somehow be,” The alien's face did some interesting gymnastics. “Unworthy?”

“...No? But, this isn't exactly normal.” Good things didn't happen to him. And even when they did, there was always a second shoe to drop. His mom not really being his mom, his long lost dad a conman. Finding a family of sorts only for Tessa to die and Mac to just... whatever the fuck that was. Fall in love, only for it to not be his love and have her hate him with her everything. Live forever, but die anyway. Thus the scales are balanced. “You should know, _I'm_ not normal. In addition to the whole, uh, burglary thing. I'm an Immortal.”

“Oh?”

“And the guy who I killed, he was an Immortal to.”

Richie watched Loki blink, long and slow, before tucking his hands behind his back and sighing. “I do believe something has been lost in translation. Immortals cannot die, Richie. That's kind of the point.”

“Oh, we do. We die all the fucking time.” Richie grumbled, thinking of the crash and burn and the painful sting of a bullet that had been healed over. Of toxic gas filling lungs and panic stealing consciousness. “Difference is unlike most earth mortals we get back up. Unless we die in a dual with another Immortal and our quickening gets absorbed by the victor. All our power, our _knowledge_ pass to our killer so, in a way we don't really die. It's how I knew the code to the security system.”

“Like tributaries merging into a stronger stream.”

“What?”

Loki waved off the question. “So you have this other man's, this _immortal'_ s memories. Which you're using to accomplish your goals. How is this a problem?”

Richie frowned, looking up at the expected wall of family photos that climbed along with the stairs. School pictures and family groups both. Knowing what it meant, knowing what it was like to be in that position with the man you considered a father standing with blade drawn... his stomach turned and his answer was laced with acid. “It's a problem because he was a killer and a liar and utterly disgusting and he's _in my head_. I got his power. I remember what it was like raising those kids and just, just killing them after years and thinking it was _good_. Like murdering your own kids is the best way to protect them, that it's _right!_ ”

He didn't stomp up the stairs, but he wanted to. He could feel the phantom eyes staring from the photos; once happy children staring at him accusingly. No one thinks themselves the villain. Clark Kelly hadn't thought what he did was bad, was evil, he'd adopted plenty of children over his very long lifetime and given them happy homes. He had people that called him grandpa. But none of those children raised to adulthood had the potential to be immortal.

Richie could feel Loki, his awareness expanding and sharpening as his quickening surged in response to his emotions. The other man's voice was as cold and empty as the arctic when it came, so soft Richie almost didn't hear it. “He killed his children?”

It wasn't Loki's fault. It was Clark Kelly's fault. Loki wasn't even from around here, in every sense of the phrase. He couldn't know; couldn't understand. Richie stopped at the top of the stairs and squeezed the handrail. The hard, polished wood didn't give an inch and the solid stability of it was pleasantly real. The leather of his riding gloves creaked.

“Immortals. We don't have parents. I don't even know if we can be called orphans, you can't lose what you never had. We just sort of, exist, come into being not thinking we're any different than the people who found and raised us. Some of us live and die and never know. Go peacefully into that good night. And some of us die _messy_ , we die surprised and angry, and then we _get back up_.

“And, and maybe you think it's a miracle. Surprise! You're not dead. Maybe it's a second chance. And you don't know how to react. It's scary, having reality pull the rug out from under you. But then you meet someone else who has experienced the same thing, who knows, and you think everything is going to be okay. You are gonna live forever.

“But there's a catch, because of course there's a catch, and this one is called The Game. Immortals hunting and killing other immortals in the world's deadliest game of hide-and-seek. And that person who helped you, who told you what you are, there is a very good chance that one day they are going to try to kill you. Or you them. Because There Can Only Be One.”

Richie was shaking, cursing his body and the hormones because it had been years and years but he could remember everything so clearly. Mac had tried to kill him. Twice. The first he'd escaped by grace of Joe. The second was Methos and Connor, and the only reason Connor _hadn't_ put down his clansman for a _rabid dog_ was because Methos had begged the head hunter not to.

There would not be a third time.

Richie swallowed back the hurt, because he wasn't nineteen, dammit, he was thirty-seven. The past was the past. He was alive, though Mac didn't know it, and he didn't need to know. “He thought he was saving them. Most kids in the system, they're ecstatic to get adopted. All anyone wants is parents who love them, you know? So he got those kids so easy. On paper, he checks all the boxes, even though his paper is pure bullshit. Has to be when you're immortal. So he got them and he made them feel loved and then as soon as puberty hit he'd ram his sword through their chests. To preserve their innocence, their goodness, save them from themselves.

“Because killing is a sin that taints the soul, and he'd never subject them to that. Take the burden of the Game on himself, like some kind of martyr, and kill them again as soon as they woke up. Crying. Frightened. With daddy telling them it was for the best as he beheaded his own children. That is what's in my head. And all those memories, all that _betrayal_ those kids felt, _everything_ is in my head.”

Loki's arms wrapped around him in parody of the drive up, but unlike the drive Richie didn't have his helmet. His jacket wasn't zipped. Loki pressed a kiss to his neck and held on. The man's nose was cold where touched Richie's ear. Tickled. “Then let's make some new memories.”

God, did he want to. “...are you sure you're real? I'm starting to think I'm hallucinating you. Immortals can go crazy, you know, it does happen. And there was this one dick that could make people see things that weren't there.”

“I assure you I am real.” Loki laughed, one hand snaking downward and into Richie's pants while the other climbed to pinch the blond's nipple. Richie's gasped and clutched for the arm going into his pants. “Very, very real. As much as some would like it to be otherwise.”

“Stairs.” Richie managed think past the sudden longing as Loki pressed them together, fingers slowly squeezing and relaxing, and squeezing again on the claimed cock. He tugged on the arm attached to it, halfheartedly fighting for freedom. “Shouldn't do this on the stairs. There, the office should be around here, I should start the money transfer.”

Loki perked up. “The heart of the monster's power?”

“You could say that,” Richie agreed as he twisted free. Loki stayed close, no longer touching but a presence that clashed with everything Richie had inherited from his latest challenger. Loki wasn't an impressionable child ripe for molding. He wasn't innocent. He was something, what exactly Richie didn't know, but the immortal wasn't one to throw stones. “Here it is. See if you can find the bank fobs. They're these little plastic things about the size of your thumb.”

The office was designed with French doors, and swung open on a room that had been decorated with stereotypical mountain man effects. A small leather couch with fur covered pillows was pressed against one wall and a tapestry of an Elk on a mountainside hung from one wall. At the far end of the room was a desk and Clark's computer. While it was booting up Richie began going through desk drawers to find the security fobs. Those, he wasn't sure as to the location. They shouldn't have left the house, Clark had worked from home most days to conceal his lack of aging, but he didn't exactly have a set spot that he put them.

“There's a vault, here.”

“A vault?” Richie pushed a drawer full of loose change, pencils, and business cards shut. He saw Loki standing in front of a family portrait that was actually a swinging door. Classic. “Oh, safe. Yeah. He did have one of those, should just be some emergency cash and passports.”

“Could the _fobs_ be in there? It's not a very complicated system. I could probably blast it open.”

“Dude, we do not need the attention dynamite will get us. It has built in alarms of its own, most likely.” Richie stood up and walked over to the wall safe -falling into the calm sea of focus that came with being on a job, away from the conflicting arousal, anger, and pain that newly won memories invoked- tilting his head as he examined it. Amanda would have sweet talked the thing open in a minute or less, he was sure. Cracking safes were her bread and butter. But this one was electronic with a keypad, and try as he might Richie couldn't pry up the memory of the code. It wasn't one Clark had thought about much, keying the numbers with muscle memory more than anything else.

And it would be that asshole's style to make it so a wrong code locked down the system and alert the cops. Granted, it would take them more than a few minutes to arrive being out in the mountains. But still.

“Focus. Just gotta focus.” Richie closed his eyes and exhaled. He rolled his neck, shaking his limbs like he was warming up for a boxing match.

He sort of was.

Everything he told Loki was true. Clark Kelly was still there, still in the back of his head, freshly dead and lurking, longing to keep living. Not your fault, Richie could easily imagine him saying, the curse makes us kill each other. Bow out, switch places, let _me_ take control and you can rest. You don't have to be afraid.

Maybe, if Richie was a scared kid who just out of juvy it would have worked. But he wasn't. And it didn't.

Eye still closed, Richie's hand hovered over the keypad. Moments later, the safe beeped and hissed as the light went green and the bolts of the lock retracted. The money in the safe was negligible, the passports even more so, but bank fobs were in hand and back by the computer in seconds. Loki followed him over, perching on the edge of the desk as Richie claimed the chair and began logging in to the bank website. The digital code on the fobs changed every minute, and without them he wouldn't be able to access anything but basic statements.

“Won't the clerks suspect something?” Loki murmured as he watched the blond begin transferring funds, draining Clark's accounts of everything but the minimum to keep them open. Closing would have required going in person, would have raised questions, and it was better to wait a generation or two before he tried claiming to be Clark's great-grandson or something.

For now he'd have to be happy with several hundreds of thousands of dollars being disbursed between Richie's own Swiss Accounts, courtesy of Amanda, and a few low profile charities to throw off the scent. To the victor go the spoils.

“I doubt it. He moved money pretty often, it won't send any red flags until his death gets reported.”

“Well then,” Loki nudged the swivel chair with his foot, turning immortal to face alien, smiling down on Richie with a look that reminded the blond of himself. It was the kind of smile that put the ladies at ease and convinced friends to go out on the town, but somehow always ended with him waiting alone in an uncomfortable chair while the light bulbs flickered annoyingly overhead. “Shall we celebrate?”

It really was unfair how tall Loki was. The guy had been teasing him all damn day -like Richie would ever just _forget_ the presence watching his back- even knowing that he was on a schedule and really, the one-two combo of youth and immortality might make his libido the thing of legends but there was a time and a place. A place that atop a moving motorcycle was not.

Rug burn was one thing. Road burn?

Loki leaned back, arms braced against the top of the desk to take his weight, making the strange, smooth material of his shirt go taught over his chest muscles. The dark boot lifted from the chair and slid along Richie's inner thigh, skimming worn jeans with the slightest of pressure. Green eyes glinted beneath lowered lashes, and the smile sharpened as a thin sliver of teeth bit at soft, pink lips as if in hunger.

Abruptly, Richie stood, chair rolling away and bumping into the back wall with a dull thud. He stepped between Loki's long, inviting legs like a he would step into an opening during a spar and captured the other man's face in his hands. He pressed his mouth to Loki's, licked at the other man's mischievous smile until he gained entrance, and put everything he ever learned in Europe to use. Lips, teeth, and tongue: he explored all of it. Loki even _tasted_ bitter.

It made Richie's guts twist in discomfort even as his arousal pressed against its confines. He was an unabashed people person, he was happy when other people were happy, and it didn't take a genius to see that Loki wasn't happy. Talented, pretty, and so far out of Richie's league it had to be some kind of heresy, but he wasn't happy.

And while Richie would be the first to admit he was rather inexperienced in such matters he was pretty damn sure happy people didn't free fall from fucking space.

Loki gave a moan of encouragement that was swallowed by the kiss even as he was pushed back by the force of it, and a mug with the generic proclamation of _World's Greatest Dad_ hit the hardwood and sent pens rattling like dry bones. Loki wobbled, elbows bending, and Richie him followed down, climbing the desk with his knees and bracketing the man between them. Richie broke the kiss for air, sucking it in with a gasp, and pressed his forehead to Loki's as he released the sculpted cheeks and an equally defined jaw. He was so different when he was a woman. Everything was so much softer.

Both were nice, though. Both Loki. Both a terrible idea, but that wasn't exactly new. Richie sighed, lightly shaking his head and so grinding his skull against his lover's. His lover, for however long it lasted against a history of poor paramours that either almost got him killed or tried to kill him. So.

Richie placed light kisses on Loki's cheeks, words catching and dying in his throat.

Richie was gay. Bi? He just liked the pretty things and his dick didn't give a shit what package it came in. Richie smiled as the thought settled. It was a truth all the parts of him could live with. Mac would be so shocked. Connor would just ignore it. Methos would give tips and Amanda would probably ask for pictures. He wondered what his watcher would think. If it would be recorded in some diary somewhere. _And on this day the Immortal Richie Ryan went out for breakfast of bagel with cream cheese spread and then banged a dude._

Freed from the duty of holding Loki in place, Richie let his hands wander down the stupidly soft material of Loki's turtleneck. It didn't look like silk, but did feel similar. He pulled it up and explored the hard planes of his torso. Loki was all hard muscle and smooth skin, strangely alien in his lack of hair. That, too, was different from when he was female.

Not that lady Loki was a bear or anything, but the carpet had definitely matched the drapes.

The needy alien's fingers dug almost painfully into his loose jeans, fisting in the material. Beneath him, Loki's body tensed and his pelvis lifted, just a tiny bit. With his legs dangling off the desk at the knee he couldn't get proper leverage. Wet, pink lips parted in a pant. “Fuck me.”

“Maybe. If you ask _nicely_.” Richie looked away, concealing his smile, and left behind saliva coated nipples that pebbled in the cool air as he trailed kisses down Loki's chest and stomach. Guy deserved it, after all.

“ _Please_ fuck me, sweet _hver?_ ” Loki asked, eyes shuttering, and Richie watched each shaky breath. “ _Please._ In this room, on your defeated enemies' throne, I _want_ you to _fuck me._ ”

That was, that was something Richie hadn't even considered. He swallowed, hard, and popped the button on Loki's darker pants, the not-denim quickly pushed down to reveal a lack of anything else but a very needy Loki. Smooth, like the rest of him. Flushed. Pretty. Fuckable. But not something Richie could do from this angle.

Richie scooted back off the desk -Loki's grip loosening as the alien sensed victory- feet finding purchase on the floor and his own cock finding friction against cotton blend as he did so. Richie eyed Loki's penis, his own throbbing in sympathetic need. It would be easy, it would be good, it would serve him right after teasing all damn day. Loki's asshole, pale pink and twitching. _Still_.

Richie began to chuckle. He was still laughing as he leaned over, pressing his forearm across Loki's stomach to keep him from squirming too much as he swallowed the alien cock down. His throat constricted around the foreign muscle as he laughed at the absurdity of it all. Here he was, sucking off a guy, in Clark's cabin on Clark's desk -the man would be rolling in his grave at the impropriety, the _scandal_ \- and it felt so damn good. He felt himself moving instinctively as he did so. Pulling off the dick, wrestling with his own gag reflex and his need to breathe, licking around the bit of skin that under the folds almost looked blue. His own hips twitched in needy reflex of their own, demanding, but he wasn't a stupid kid even if he looked it.

Even if, sometimes, he still acted like one.

Loki's hands had found purchase on the arm Richie had slung across his stomach, fingers strangely cold and like tiny steel bars but there was a tremble to him. The _hum_ not getting louder but deepening, sinking down past his chest, his belly, like it was searching for something inside Richie. Not an unpleasant feeling, not unwelcome, but certainly unknown. Richie's eyes flicked upward, past the oddly smooth expanse of Loki's pubic region, to meet the blown, green rimmed pupils. Though his lips barely moved Richie could see the other man was whispering something; some kind of repetitive mantra. Fucking aliens.

Maybe they'd go to Brazil after this.

Richie moved off of Loki's dick -wondering at the feel of hot, thick flesh- and wiped away a glob of drool with the back of his hand as he did so. Loki hissed through clenched teeth as his unrealized junk was once again unattended and bare to the cold, unforgiving world. Richie grinned mirthlessly. Turnabout was fair play, after all.

“Loki,” Richie said with his best salesman voice -which wasn't too good at the moment, his throat was suddenly tight and sore- as he loomed over the other man. “Remember, it's not about orgasm.”

Loki scowled, and even that was beautifully done. Green eyes narrowed, and he let out a sound that was less snake and more tea kettle. “You won't ride me to ruin, then? A punishment for you as much as I, I assure you.”

The immortal rolled his eyes, exasperated, and crossed his arms over his chest. Like that sort of thing had ever been his kink. “Oh, no. I fully intend to, how did you say it, make your cock weep. But before we get to the fireworks, I want you to promise me something,”

“Hmm?”

“You can do, _things_.” Loki sucked in a breath, his body going oddly tense. Odd, considering. It wasn't like Loki had tried very hard to hide his doings from Richie. The blond sighed, unfolding his arms and reaching out to slowly stroke bare thighs. Like soothing a spooked pet. “I don't know how it works and I don't really care. The world is a massive and unknowable place. Mysteries abound. But I want you promise me that you won't fuck with my mind. Ever. No voice tricks. No word games. No fucking illusions.

“If you are unhappy, _tell me_. If you want to pick where we go, just say so. If, if you ever want to go your own, for _whatever_ reason, that's fine too, but let me _know_. Don't try to manipulate me, don't make me guess. Please. And I, I'll promise the same. Okay?”

Richie waited a beat. “Loki?”

Slowly, infinitely slowly, green eyes blinked. Beneath his hand Richie felt the muscles go slack before tensing as Loki pulled himself back up. Black painted nails reached up to cup both side's of Richie's face in a mirror of the immortal's earlier actions. The smile Loki sported was, well, it was weird. And a little worrisome.

“Hey man, uh, are you okay?”

“Aside from a little _neglect_ , I am perfectly fine, _Hver_. I agree to your terms, your mind is your own, full of holes and dead men as it is.”

“Hey!” Richie feigned insult, stepping back as his lover laughed, shirt falling back into place as he clutched at his stomach. “Rude.”

The dark haired man tilted his head and snorted, muttering, “If anyone else asked me of such a thing I would take it as an insult. Asking a trickster to not play a trick. The gall..”

“So long as we understand each other.” Richie mumbled out around the glove he pinched between his teeth, pulling the aged leather off of one hand while the other searched a desk drawer for the lotion he was sure should be in there, somewhere. The tube had rolled toward the back, the gleam of a golden cap catching Richie's attention, and he grabbed it with a grin. After tugging off his remaining glove Richie popped the cap and pointed eyed Loki's by then flagging erection. “Now, will you let me love you?”

* * *

Loki wore her female self, though in this instance she'd also brought forth the dress to match it. It was a design she'd observed the other day on a woman walking past the eatery Richie had taken them too. It was, she felt, ideal for getting what she wanted. The neckline was low, the hem high, and the waist form fitting. Of course, instead of the white and gold of the original she'd gone with green and gold, and the asgardian gems to match, but with her _hver_ she didn't need to worry about power conservation.

Before her Fall, Loki had always considered practitioners who tied their magic to a location or object stupid and short sighted. Even if it took longer to build one's personal energy stores, surely that time and effort was preferable to being hamstrung by artificial limits? Karnilla was a force to be reckoned with, and not even Odin dared to take war to the Norns, but if she left her land she was nothing more than a walking target. Despite Thor's natural aptitude for the weather magic he'd inherited -Loki once thought unfairly- from Frigga take away Mjolnir and the so called God of Thunder could do little more than summon rudderless rainstorms.

It had been Loki's choice, then, to go the slow route. She would grow her power and take it with her, unstunted by the crutch of magical pacts. She would never have the raw strength of Thor, or Odin, or any number of magicians and enchanters. She hadn't needed it. Her magic was an assassin's dagger, her words a noose, and it was in this way she had fought without fear of ever being rendered truly helpless. Odin would never be able to take her power, her birthright, as he had his own son's.

But that had been before her Fall.

Now, she'd met a wellspring of magic that was not a convergence of the land, but in the shape of a boy -of a man- that spoke and laughed and blushed and she could see the appeal. She saw him through the glass of the display room even now. He paced outside, occasionally speaking into the slim brick he called a phone, hair catching sunlight light harvested wheat.

Beside Loki, a man would not stop talking. “How's it feel? If you're going to be using the passenger seat you can install the external storage. Perfect for long trips across country.”

Loki wiggled and leaned forward on her seat, allowing her breasts to fall forward the strain against her dress. The merchant was trying ever so carefully to keep his eyes above her neck. It was cute. Futile, but cute. “It's alright, I suppose. A little too soft, I think. You don't have anything... smaller, do you?”

“Smaller? Um. Maybe I should talk to the Mr...” The merchant trailed off, backing up and turning to the opening door.

Her _hver_ had returned, was slipping his phone into his jacket pocket, and had the most peculiar expression on his face. Shy, almost. Her _hver_ was never shy. Confused, often, and embarrassed sometimes. But never _shy_.

She dismounted the motorcycle she was supposed to be testing out for herself -as though she'd ever ride alone when she could bathe in the wash of her _hver's_ magic- and sauntered over to the blond. She did so enjoy the strut that came with the lower balance center and female hips. The sway was just – fun.

“Sorry, man.” Richie apologized needlessly to the merchant and gestured toward the door and parking lot beyond. He offered his arm, and Loki took it. “Something just came up and we gotta go.”

“Are you sure, I can give you my card-”

But they were already out the door, and mounting the vehicle that was admittedly a little too small for two. It didn't even have a place for to brace her feet against, so she had to be careful to not burn her ankle on the exhaust pipe. “Who were you talking to?”

Her _hver_ handled her an enclosed helm and she dutifully put it on as he answered, “Amanda. She's a friend, and an immortal like me. She needs some help for a job, wanted to know if I'd be willing.”

“A job... like your last _job._ ”

Loki could hear the smile in the answer, even if she couldn't see it. The engine roared to life between her legs, and she scooted an inch closer to the body in front of her. “Yeah. She's a professional, actually. Was a professional. Been mentoring a former cop the last few years so she tried to go straight, but someone dredged a river and now she's trying to get some magic rock things back.”

Unseen, Loki arched an eyebrow. “Magic rock things?”

“Yeah, I don't get it either, but I owe her a favor. If you don't want to, though, we can still head south. Check out some beaches...?”

“Why not?” Loki grinned, mind filling with thoughts of what it would feel like to stand in a room with two -living- convergences. What it would be like to lay in bed taking in the power of both, feeling it rush down her nerves and ring in her soul. “Let's meet with his lady thief of yours. She sounds... delightful.”

**Author's Note:**

> According to my notes from I don't remember when, hver is a very archaic word for 'hot spring'.


End file.
